Cotton is particularly sensitive to spray drift from Group 4 herbicides (phenoxy herbicides including 2,4-D). Significant financial losses have resulted from off-target spray drift in the past, and every year there are reports of phenoxy herbicide damage in cotton.

Suffering spray drift damage is frustrating and has a detrimental financial impact on our growers, which is why Cotton Australia has continued to invest considerable time and funds into tackling the issue. Off-target spray drift is an issue affecting all of agriculture across a range of pesticides. It is important for all of Australian agriculture that we remain vigilant to protect our farms and the ongoing access to key chemicals.

Each season, Cotton Australia’s policy and communications teams work to devise and implement strategic awareness campaigns around spray drift and best practice for spraying. Cotton Australia works closely with cotton growers, spray applicators, chemical registrants, resellers, regulators and other agricultural industries to develop and deliver the campaigns.

Campaigns include:

• Supporting growers to report spray drift incidents and keeping an industry log of incidents that have occurred. The SnapSend Solve App is now available for growers to report incidents to Cotton Australia.
• Working collaboratively with stakeholders within the cotton industry and other agricultural sectors to understand, navigate and assist growers through the challenges faced when planning spraying activities.
• Delivering training and workshops on spray application best practice.
• Delivering a targeted media campaign through a range of networks in cropping areas.
• Promoting SataCrop, a mapping tool informing all stakeholders of the location of potentially sensitive crops.
• Promoting the WAND tower network, which are weather stations situated in regional areas to assist growers in determining the best conditions for spray application. WAND towers can be used to detect the presence of hazardous inversion conditions.

It is critical that growers report any incident, or suspected incident to Cotton Australia as soon as it occurs. The best way to do this is using the SnapSendSolve App, or alternatively it can be reported to their closest Cotton Australia Regional Manager. It is essential that incidents are properly logged and investigated, and Cotton Australia has a straightforward process that is simple and confidential. It is important that we know if incidents occur in order to make representations on behalf of the industry. While Cotton Australia cannot take legal action, provide professional advice or submit adverse experience reports to regulatory authorities, we can point growers in the right direction and tailor spray drift awareness initiatives into key areas based on feedback received by growers.

SataCrop is a tool to mitigate the risk of spray drift by allowing operators to understand where sensitive crops are located in proximity to their spray operation.

The SataCrop tool is an industry initiative developed by Cotton Australia and Precision Cropping Technologies (PCT).

SataCrop has the ability to map all crop types, including cotton, grains and tree crops. Growers can log in and plot the location of fields they have planted with different crops each season. Other farmers and spray contractors can review the site when planning spray applications to see the location of potentially sensitive neighbouring crops. This, coupled with vigilance around spray conditions, wind directions, and application helps to reduce adverse effects of spray drift.

Nozzles affect spray quality and spraying efficiency. GRDC has two resources related to nozzle selection for standard boom sprays to help select the best nozzle for the task:

• Standard nozzle selection guide
• Nozzle selection for boom, band and shielded spraying back pocket guide.

It is important growers and spray applicators understand the risks around spray inversions, how they are formed, and how to avoid them. Visit this website for more tools and publications around spray drift, which includes a handy document produced by Nufarm - the '24 Hour Risk Profile for Summer Spraying' - which can be used for reference.